To publish this thought was dangerous indeed, and for more than thirty years it hay slumbering in the minds of Kopernik and the friends to whom he had privately intrusted it.
At last he prepares his great work on the "Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies," and dedicates it to the pope himself. He next seeks a place of publication. He dares not send it to Rome, for there are the rulers of the older Church ready to seize it. He dares not send it to Wittenberg, for there are the leaders of Protestantism no less hostile. He therefore intrusts it to Osiander, of Nuremberg.[1]
But, at the last moment, the courage of Osiander failed him. He dared not launch the new thought boldly. He writes a groveling preface; endeavors to excuse Kopernik for his novel idea. He inserts the apologetic lie that Kopernik propounds the doctrine of the movement of the earth, not as a fact, but as an hypothesis. He declares that it is lawful for an astronomer to indulge his imagination, and that this is what Kopernik has done.
Thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of scientific truths—a truth not less ennobling to religion than to science—forced, in coming into the world, to sneak and crawl.[2]
On the 24th of May, 1543, the newly-printed book first arrived at the house of Kopernik. It was put into his hands; but he was on his death-bed. A few hours later he was beyond the reach of those mistaken, conscientious men, whose consciences would have blotted his reputation, and perhaps have destroyed his life.
Yet not wholly beyond their reach. Even death could not be trusted to shield him. There seems to have been fear of vengeance upon his corpse, for on his tombstone was placed no record of his life-long labors, no mention of his great discovery. There were graven upon it affecting words, which may be thus simply trans-
- ↑ For dangers at Wittenberg, see Lange, "Geschichte des Materialismus," vol. i., p. 217.
- ↑ Osiander, in a letter to Copernicus, dated April 20, 1541, had endeavored to reconcile him to such a procedure, and ends by saying, "Sic enim placidiores reddideris peripatheticos et theologos quos contradicturos metuis." See Apologia Tychonis in "Kepleri Opera Omnia," Frisch's edition, vol. i., p. 246. Kepler holds Osiander entirely responsible for this preface. Bertrand, in his "Fondateurs de l'Astronomie Moderne," gives its text, and thinks it possible that Copernicus may have yielded "in pure condescension toward his disciple." But this idea is utterly at variance with expressions in Copernicus's own dedicatory letter to the pope, which follows the preface. For a good summary of the argument, see Figuier, "Savants de la Renaissance," pp. 378, 379. See also, citation from Gassendi's life of Copernicus, in Flammarion, "Vie de Copernic," p. 124. Mr. John Fiske, accurate as he usually is, in his recent "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," appears to have fallen into the error of supposing that Copernicus, and not Osiander, is responsible for the preface.
admitting that De Cusa and Widmanstadt sustained this idea and received honors from their respective popes, shows that, when the Church gave it serious consideration, it was condemned. There is nothing in this view unreasonable. It would be a parallel case to that of Leo X., at first inclined toward Luther and the others, in their "squabbles with the begging friars," and afterward forced to oppose them.
